


been missing all this time

by hadrons_collide



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Slow Build, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 08:31:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1976136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hadrons_collide/pseuds/hadrons_collide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Winter Soldier, Bucky moves in with Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	been missing all this time

**Author's Note:**

> I've been slowly working on this for two and a half months and I keep forgetting about it. I'm not a fan of posting WIPs just in case I do never come back to it, but I actually do want to finish this so hopefully posting part of it will encourage me to keep working on it.
> 
> But ANYWAYS, this first part is more of a prologue of sorts. The main story will be Bucky moving in with Steve and slowly falling for him yada yada yada. I do have concrete ideas of things I want to happen, it's just getting around to actually writing them.
> 
> Title from Anberlin's "Stationary Stationery" which is the most stevebucky song I know.

It takes two minutes for him to notice the blonde woman that follows him out of the Smithsonian. He glances behind him and takes in her buttoned shirt and blazer, the gun barely hidden on her hip, and the professional way she tails him and figures she's with SHIELD - or whatever's left of it, anyways. He knows what happened - he'd gotten in the habit of keeping the news on at a low hum on the nights he breaks into Pierce's house to sleep and shower and grab another handful of the stash of money he'd found the first night.

He glances at her reflection in the glass of the building they pass- she's a few feet behind him and he sees her press a finger to her ear. "Switch off your comm," he says, loud enough that she can hear him but not loud enough to raise suspicion in the others on the street. He nods when he sees her pull it out of her ear and keeps walking, leading her towards a diner he knows is usually fairly deserted.

She slides into the booth across from him just as he's pouring himself a cup of coffee. "James Buchanan Barnes," she says, and he knows it's not a question.

"Apparently," he says with a casual shrug of his shoulders. "Coffee, Agent...?"

"Carter. Until very recently, SHIELD Agent Thirteen." James taps on the coffee pot with his metal thumb and she nods. "And yes, please."

"Agent Carter." The name flows off his tongue like he's said it before, said it a thousand times at least. The hard determination in her face is vaguely familiar as well, and he wonders if he knew her in one of the lives he doesn't remember. "If you aren't with SHIELD, who was on your comm?"

"Captain Rogers," she says with a small smile. "He wanted to know if I saw you around, since I was staying in DC."

"He's not?"

Agent Carter shakes her head. "He's been in New York for two days. Thought maybe you'd go to Brooklyn."

"The fuck would I go to Brooklyn for?" he scoffs.

She eyes him but doesn't elaborate. "I can have you on a helicopter in ten minutes-"

"No," James says firmly. "I'm not going anywhere with anyone from SHIELD. Not yet. First, I need some answers."

Agent Carter nods. "Okay, what do you-"

"Not from you, sweetheart," he replies with a smirk. "Get Rogers here. Say, four hours from now? You guys are like super heroes, right, you can do that. And he comes alone," he adds when Agent Carter opens her mouth to say something. "No wires, no comms, no backup. Just me and Captain America. And probably a few cheeseburgers, 'cause they're damn good here."

He expects Agent Carter to argue, to tell him he's being unreasonable, to point her gun at him and tell him to just follow her to the damn helicopter. Instead, she simply says "I think we can work with that," and pulls out her cell phone. "I'm calling Steve," she says before he can ask.

He watches the way Agent Carter's mouth curls into a smile when she says Steve's name, when she starts talking to him. He wonders if there's something going on between the two of them -then he wonders why he'd even care.

"He's here with me.... no, he's fine. We're at a diner. He wants you to meet him here later today, so if you can get Carol to fly you back-" she pauses and laughs softly. "Okay, hold on. He wants to know if three hours from now is okay."

He laughs. "Sure. Not like I have friends or plans or anything."

When Agent Carter leaves him and makes him promise to come alone ("again, sweetheart, I don't have any friends"), and once James is finally sure she's not tailing him anymore, he digs his hands in the pockets of his coat and doubles back to the Smithsonian.

It's his sixth time in the week he's been on his own, and he thinks the guard might be starting to recognize him, but he doesn't care. Every time he's gone and stared at all the stories, at his face, at Rogers' face, a little bit of his memory unlocks and he remembers more and more. A dumb story one of the Commandos told, a salute from Rogers as he took out another Nazi with his sniper rifle- nothing significant, nothing huge, nothing that really tells him anything at all, but enough for him to come to terms with the fact that he actually is James Buchanan Barnes.

He actually watches the film reels this time- the first few days, the idea of sitting in a dark room with other people put him too on edge to even bother. When Peggy Carter shows up in the first clip he laughs- that must be why Agent Carter sounded so familiar, and James wonders if they're related in any way. 

Then the scene shifts and James' breath catches in his throat. Because he's on the screen, moving and talking and _laughing_ , with Steve. 

He can't hear what he's saying to Steve, but he doesn't have to- he remembers. The camera man had an assistant, and he'd tried to sweet talk the girl, get her to go dancing with them. She told him she was engaged and Steve had just laughed and said that had never stopped Bucky before.

The memory hits him like a brick, the same way the smile he gives Steve in the video does. So far, most of the memories that have come back to him vividly have been bad- assassinations here, shootings there, hostages elsewhere. But that's nothing he wants to remember. The way Steve's grinning and laughing, the way they're looking out for each other when the clip changes- he knows it's not much to go off of, but that's definitely a life worth remembering.

 

Steve's already there when James shows up at the diner. His eyes light up and he walks towards James, arms out. James flinches out of habit and turns away, shaking his head. "I'm not much on hugs," he says, and the change in Steve's demeanor is immediately obvious.

"Oh," he murmurs and lets James follow him back to the table.

They order and James is very aware of the way Steve is just staring at him. It's not the watchful stare he normally gives people, trying to figure out their intentions or if he's going to have to kill them. No, Steve is staring at him like he just wants to look, like he can't believe what's in front of him, and it honestly makes James shift awkwardly on his side of the booth.

"So you thought I'd go to New York," he finally asks, breaking the silence.

"Yeah," Steve replies. "Back to Brooklyn- where we lived, the places we hung out- figured you might've gone back there."

"I didn't remember you, what made you think I'd remember all that?"

He shrugs. "Not really sure. More hopeful than anything, I guess. But I have friends in New York, too, a couple scientists. Figured they might know a way to help you remember everything." Steve's brow furrows and he looks James in the eyes. "You _do_ want to remember everything, don't you?"

He picks up the butter knife on the table in front of him and twirls it in his fingers. Steve tenses noticeably, and James laughs. "Relax. I could kill a regular person with this, sure," he says casually, "but you're a super soldier. Probably wouldn't leave a scratch. But that's not the point." He tosses the knife from one hand to the other, watching the glint of the metal in the air. "Right now, I know I could easily kill all seven people in this diner, except for you, with just this knife. I know exactly what I would do, exactly how I would incapacitate you, and exactly how I would escape. And that's all I know." He lets the knife fall back to the table with a clang. "I don't wanna know that shit anymore, Steve."

Steve halfway reaches for James' hand then stops, letting his hand fall somewhere in the middle of the table. "Okay. Bruce, Tony, they can- they can help, I think. They're both genius scientists, if anyone can help get your memories back, it's them."

The waitress brings them their burgers and James tears into his while Steve watches. "You've gotta come to New York, though. With me."

"Is the food this good there?" he asks, mouth still half-full of beef and cheese and bread.

Steve laughs. "Even better. There's this shawarma place that Tony loves, and it's not bad, but it's nothing compared to this Italian place I found about a year ago right near his tower. You'll love it, Buck."

He stops chewing and looks Steve dead in the eyes. "Don't call me that. I know I might... be... him, but I don't think I'll ever be the Bucky you knew. The shit I know I've done is shit I know he never would have done. So just... I'll come to New York with you, but you gotta call me James."

It takes a moment for Steve to nod, like he's processing everything. "Okay. James. It's gonna be weird, but if I can adjust to the internet and cell phones, I think I can handle it."

James laughs softly and steals a French fry off Steve's plate.

 

Agent Carter- the one who followed him earlier, not the one from the Smithsonian reel - is waiting for them at the helicopter. He starts to say something flirty - "you just couldn't stay away from me, could you sweetheart?" is on the tip of his tongue - but Steve's smile when he sees her and the soothing way he says "Sharon, we're good" stops him. He's a killer but he's not a monster- if Steve's got a girl, he's not gonna stand in his way.

"Agent Carter," he says instead, looking back and forth between her and Steve with a knowing smile. Sharon blushes and turns away from them, asking the pilot about when they can take off and if the weather is going to hold up.

Steve shakes his head and grins. "I know you said you're not Bucky, but..." There's a fondness in his eyes, like he's remembering things that James possibly never will. "I swear, you're already starting to act like he did."

James just shrugs his shoulders and takes a seat.

 

He feels like he already knows Tony Stark, the way he talks a mile a minute and stares unabashedly at the cybernetic arm and mutters things about improvements. Steve explains they knew Tony's father during the war, and James has a vague recollection of seeing the name Howard Stark in a couple places in the Smithsonian.

The clearer memory he has of the name Howard Stark is seeing it at the top of a Hydra mission brief, of a properly placed bomb, of a car crash, of the newspaper headline he read the next day while sipping coffee like he hadn't murdered the people he was reading about.

But Tony Stark knows how to help him, or at least he says he does, so James keeps his mouth shut and passively lets them strap him to a chair in a lab, the way he's let countless men in labs do over the course of his life.

Except this time, the men were trying to bring back his memories, not wipe them.

James watches as Tony and Bruce argue about the machine they've put together to help - Steve keeps saying something about Bruce being careful from the other side of the lab but they either don't care or can't hear him over their science talk.

They poke and prod at James for a couple hours, but the only thing he remembers is how much he hates being poked and prodded. They detach his metal arm after he grabs Tony's throat at the suggestion of shocking him, and Tony hands it off to Steve with a simple "take it to 78 so I can run some tests later." Steve gives him the most apologetic look he's ever seen before leaving.

When Steve comes back, he has a weird glowing staff in his hand. Bruce's eyes go wide and Tony drops the sharp metal thing he'd been holding. James is grateful- he's not sure what Tony had been planning on doing with it, but he's pretty sure he wasn't going to like it. "Why do you have that?" Tony says, voice panicked.

"Why do _you_ have it?" Steve asks. Tony just shrugs and tries to take it from him, but Steve holds it out of his reach. "I can use this to bring him back, right?"

Bruce eyes it warily. "Loki used it to brainwash Barton and Selvig and all those other people."

"He also used it to do everything else he wanted to do," Steve argues. "The SHIELD report on the cube said it had unlimited power and could be used for whatever purpose you desired. I think whatever we hope the cube will do, it will do."

Tony rolls his eyes. "That's very Disney princess of you, Captain. If you're planning on singing with the animals next, though, do it outside. We're trying to do science in here."

Steve doesn't leave, though- he walks over to James and holds up the staff to him. "Do you trust me?"

He shrugs as much as he can. "Not really. But I want to," he adds when he Steve's face drops. "You're not gonna stab me with that, are you?" When Steve shakes his head, James smiles. "Then go for it."

Steve takes a deep breath and presses the tip of the staff to James' temple. It's warmer than he expected and it vibrates a little against his skin.

Then Steve closes his eyes, there's a flash of blue, and James suddenly feels like his head is going to explode.

It's not a slow trickle of things coming back to him, the way it had been before- it's a flood of his entire life flashing through his brain at once- his childhood, his time with Steve, the war, dying, Hydra finding him. Assassinations, being frozen, more assassinations, more being frozen.

It's too much, but he grits his teeth and lets it happen - Hydra's given him worse. But the stoic set of his face must have broken, because Steve pulls back the staff and looks at him in horror.

"Bucky, I - James - I didn't mean - are you okay?"

"Ugh," he groans, looking up at Steve. "You just fucking zapped my brain. Of course I'm not okay.... punk."

Steve's face breaks into a grin. "Jerk," he says with the same sarcastic affection James had, the way James remembers they always had. He can't believe he ever forgot it.

 

They keep him at the tower for another week. Apparently having your entire memory returned is exhausting, and James floats in and out of consciousness the first couple of days. Whenever he's awake, though, Steve is right there next to his bed. 

They talk about James' dreams, about things he's remembered, about memories they both share. When he tells Steve that what he remembers the most is his time as the Winter Soldier, not the times that they lived together before the war, Steve just nods. "Bruce was saying the newer memories would probably be the strongest. It's only been a couple days, though- you'll get them back."

He chats with Jarvis when Steve isn't there. He learns the layout of the tower, where everyone stays, and all the security measures (which are apparently doubled on his floor - he definitely doesn't have a problem with that). He flicks through the TV channels late one evening and ends up watching a show called Dog Cops. Jarvis tells him someone named Clint has every episode saved on the DVR if he's interested, but James just turns off the TV and tries to sleep.

On day four, James finally ventures out of the area they'd set him up in, Steve at his side. According to Jarvis, Pepper was making cookies, and James decides to make a three-floor journey to get them fresh out of the oven. Steve protests, saying they could just bring him some, but James shakes his head. "If I can't get out for cookies, Steve, what the hell am I even doing?"

So once James has checked with Jarvis that everything is secure and that the cookies are in the oven, they head down to find Pepper. "Smells delicious!" Steve says when the elevator doors open, and they walk out to find the blonde woman James knows is Pepper smiling at them.

"My grandmother's secret chocolate chip cookie recipe," Pepper says proudly. "They're Tony's favorite- actually, they're everyone's favorite."

"Mine, too," James says with a grin. "That's why I'm here."

"Thank you, James," Pepper says, turning to him. "It's nice to finally meet you, Jarvis has only had great things to say about you. Tony, on the other hand..."

"Thinks I'm gonna kill him in his sleep? Yeah, I heard him." He rolls his eyes a little. "Like I'd kill him without at least getting my arm back first."

"Don't joke, James," Steve says seriously, shooting him a concerned look. 

It was only half a joke - there's no way in hell he's leaving this tower without that arm - but James smirks anyways. "Aye aye, Captain."

 

On the sixth afternoon, Steve hasn't been in all day- Jarvis tells him he's been out, not on Avengers stuff, and James relaxes a little. But when Steve shows up finally and doesn't immediately come up to his room, James asks Jarvis where he is and goes looking for him.

He finds Steve arguing with Tony in the lab. James lurks behind the doors, out of sight, listening in.

"He's been here long enough, Steve," and he knows with a sinking feeling they're talking about him. "I don't trust him. He's been messing with my tower- Jarvis actually likes him."

"Because he's a good guy," Steve says firmly. "He always was a good guy, he just... got a little brainwashed."

"Brainwashed to be an _assassin_ ," Tony replies, putting clear emphasis on the assassin part. "He wasn't brainwashed to rescue puppies or whatever."

"Yeah, you're right," James says from the doorway, slipping into view. "I'm more of a cat person."

"Where the hell did you come from?" Tony snaps.

"Assassin, remember?" He responds with a smirk. "Plus, you know if I was going to kill you I would've done it already, right? I'm not patient enough to wait it out."

Tony starts towards James and Steve steps between them, one hand firmly on James' chest. "No fighting. Whenever you want us out of here, Tony, we'll be out of here."

"As soon as possible, then," he says, sneering at James.

"Fine by me," James shrugs.

"I think they're done repairing my place, so we can head out in the morning," Steve says. "I have a guest bedroom, it's not the greatest, but-"

"I'm sure it's great," James cuts in. "Is it here, or...?"

Steve shakes his head. "DC. Work's not really there anymore, but Sam is there. He's the guy with the wings," he explains to James' confused face.

"Oh," James says in response, cringing a little at the memory of yanking Sam's wings off and kicking him off the helicarrier. "He probably won't like me."

"He's a pretty forgiving guy, I think he'll get over it," Steve says with a smile. "But he works in DC, and he deals with veterans and helping them adjust, so I think it'll be good to have him around."

James nods, thinking. "And Agent Carter, she's in DC, too," he says, eying Steve.

"Who's Agent Carter?" Tony asks, suddenly very interested.

"Steve's girl," James says with a smirk.

Steve's blushing and stammering. "I- Sharon- she's not my girl." He won't look either of them in the eye. "Sure, she's smart and beautiful but- she's just my neighbor, okay?"

James laughs. "I should've known you still can't get a girl without my help. And even then it was tough."

Steve glares at James and Tony grins. "You know, I almost like you now."

"Wish I could say the same, Stark."

Steve rolls his eyes and guides James towards the elevators. "Come on, James you can help me pack."


End file.
